The Warfield is in an awesome neighborhood. By awesome, I mean its littered with crack heads, beggars and crazies. It’s right next to a strip club and right around the corner there’s actually a decent restaurant. We started there, had a few drinks and walked over. The Warfield is also a pretty mellow place… you feel safe of persecution just in case you end up being a total fucking idiot in pursuit of a great time. There’s plenty of bars selling a variety of beers and the room is a generally simple layout with every seat being pretty good. The crowd was a reminder that we are getting old. We’re thirty somethings. I see less and less shaggy hair every time I come out to a show like this. Male pattern baldness is a bitch. Luckily one need not to sport a mane to rock the Clarks Wallabies. So predictable but what fucking ever. Richard Ascroft is our hero, so the least we can do is respect his uniform.
(large tan left footed Wallabie, front and center)
We had general admission tickets. Right on the floor which we’d normally call the pit… if The Verve was a hardcore band. Thankfully those who’d once enjoyed a hardcore show or too were there also, friendly faces from which to sway shoulder to shoulder with. (Those there know the full story - Pete, maybe not.)
My favorite feature of certain adult shows like this one is NO OPENING BAND. Who gives a shit about some dumb emerging band that was pushed onto the bill from some major label crap? I don’t, you don’t and quite frankly, you probably have a job to go to in the morning so you wanna get on with it. I assumed I’d be, as I was, a little drunk and work in the morning sounds like a terrible idea, so I took PTO.
(cell phone cam)
So the band took the stage. The old farts in the crowd were good enough for a Wednesday night. After a bit of screaming throughout the room, Richard Ashcroft mumbled something. He looks younger than us. He’s still skin and bones, wearing a black zip-up shirt, mostly open with no undershirt. He looks happy.
I don’t write set lists down, nor have I ever paid attention to song titles anyway. I’m one of those people that thinks what ever word is said most often in the chorus is probably the song’s title. I try to enjoy the show and that means allowing the entire set to melt together into one giant experience. Maybe Azriel can help me fill in the blanks and make corrections. I’ll try my best, but here’s a short rundown. (Those who want to be surprised in New York should stop reading.)
“This Is Music” - yes and it was awesome.
“History” nope, WTF?
“Sonnet” yep!
“Bittersweet” yep! “It’s a masterpiece” Rick says.
“A New Decade” booze makes my memory fuzzy but I think yes
“The Rolling People” oh yea
“The Drugs Don’t Work” yes, the semi-epic version
“Weeping Willow” yup
“Lucky Man” yes, maybe the best song live
“Velvet Morning” yes, yes, yes.
And a new song, which I can’t describe but was pretty good.
For the ending, The Verve practically did turn into a hardcore band as seen here in this terrible cell phone video clip. I think it’s some of my best camera work to date. Don’t ask me if they were good. At the beginning of the clip you can see a cloud of smoke puff up from the nerdy guy in front of me. He was obviously having a good time. Yes they were really good.
Update: I forgot to say, Ashcroft dedicated a song to Ken Kesey. Nice!
SUBSCRIBE TO RSS
April 25th, 2008 at 10:36 am
sounds like a hell of a show. what’s PTO?
April 25th, 2008 at 11:01 am
Thanks for the review. I’m going to the Vegas show. I might have to bust out the wallabees. cant wait!
April 25th, 2008 at 11:17 am
I believe PTO is office jargon for “Personal Time Off.” Duh, LOL. TTYL and TIA.
April 25th, 2008 at 7:06 pm
I shall be a rolling person at tomorrow’s Las Vegas show. I had planned on wearing tan Wallabies, but am now considering upping the ante by rocking a bucket hat & safari shirt.
April 26th, 2008 at 2:51 am
Best show in last 10 years-
San Francisco press and music
scene so lame- no reviews anywhere-
Amazing- like a giant secret roared through the tenderloin and the pontiffs fail to chime in-
the two new tracks sounded amazing- This band will dominate the globe 2007-2008- the biggest and best rock band of the last 20 years- period.
April 26th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
I’m going to be honest here. The Warfield show was one of the best concerts I have ever seen and I have seen alot of shows on multiple continents. I’ve seen other Verve/Richard Ashcroft shows as well.
The Verve is simply one of the greatest British rock/pop bands of all-time, period. Even with their limited catalog it is too good to not include it with the pantheons of British rock.
Last time Richard Ashcroft was supposed to play SF I flew up that afternoon to only get the call as the plane landed that he cancelled. Until they finally jumped on-stage me and my friend were still saying that we would still only believe we were going to see The Verve when they finally appeared, still skeptical… and then they did indeed appear and it was amazing.
The day of the show I would up jumping on a motorcycle and riding 90+ all the way up to SF from LA, a 360 mile, 7 hour ride on a non-touring sportbike because I love The Verve and I was not going to miss this show for the world. Plus, I had a ticket waiting for me.
The two new tracks were fantastic, I can’t wait to hear the LP. Ever since this band was born I have felt the Superbowl of shows for me was The Verve and they always delivered and when Ashcroft went solo those shows were great too but The Warfiled show after all this time was just very special and they sounded insane. The Verve!
April 26th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
the lighting was insane as well. The whole show was, but I kept noticing how cohesive the songs were to the stage lighting and it was such a powerful addition to the show. Especially with the hardcore ending. Nailed it! Also, (because I had never seen him before) I was hoping he pull some signature moves, like how Ian Brown does that Regge dance in place thing, and he did. It was the come to Jesus dance moves that blew my mind.
April 30th, 2008 at 11:55 am
I just saw the show in New York last night. I didn’t even know they had reassembled-my husband surprised me with tickets and I didn’t know who or what I was seeing until I saw The Verve on the marquee. The show was truly great-I think Aschcroft is SO damn sexy and has so much charisma. I had driven up from NYC to Montreal about 8 years ago to see them-and found out while having dinner prior to the show that it was cancelled so this was a long time coming. They played 3 songs off their upcoming album and I really liked all of them-especially one called Sit and Wonder.
June 14th, 2008 at 7:12 am
[...] The Verve in San Francisco, my review | Blogging on Meds [...]
June 26th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
[...] Oasis has won over Travis, obviously the recent live shows has got me hyped (read our posts here: 1, 2, 3). The new record comes out August 19th in the US and here’s the new song, stolen from [...]